Movie Critic Review: Bruce Almighty (2003)

"You wanna see the miracle?
 Be The Miracle "
 God speaking to Bruce Nolan

As Humorous As The Camel Fitting Through The Eye Of A Needle


Most modern people interviewed on how they think God looks like, resorted to the traditional image described in the scriptures
and religeous texts. But those non-physical attributes such as omnipotence or omnesience will not fit in any prospect to envision God's appearance. Actually there are scarce hints at a physical imagining of Him. However some daring authors like  William P. Young in his Novel the Schack* described God (the father in christian belief) as a black woman and Jesus as a middle eastern laborer!
"Bruce Almighty" is a movie that effortlessly provides you with a physical representation
of God. Intriguing?  Yes but not offensive!
First you need to remember that "Bruce Almighty" is, after all, a comedy by the world's
best physical comedy icon, Jim Carrey!
Second is that stretching the mind to achieve a physical imagination of God is not really blasphemous! God created Man in his image and in normal circumstances
operates by the same kind of logic as we do (not that he does not occasionally have his
own logic!). These attributes allow us to assign him human descriptions, but we need
this to be of the highest order of decency. Hence the movie presents us with a very likeable, hilarious and friendly God protrayed in elegance by Morgan Freedom with his wisdom-emanating
face and authoritative voice.
However, there are more modern ways of percieving the Almighty. God is savvy.
He is good at encoding, data entry and...think of the genome and the periodic table
Bruce with God!

of elements named after a Mendelev!
In fact the next movie by Tom Shadyac
"Evan Almighty" God is presented
more clearly as the admirable Holy Handy
Man with tools and catalogues!
Undoubtedly God's appearance in modern time would be percieved as less intimidating.
So this guy, a TV channel reporter, who is discontented
with his work and unable to compete starts to blame
every mishap that befalls him on God. He does not only whine but also gets so abusive that God summons him in the vast white-painted expanse of a building under renovation.
Quite reminiscent of the wilderness where Moses met with God in Sinai. But of course it was actually in
Buffalo, NY.
God gives Bruce his powers and takes a week's vacation.
He wants him to see how hard it is to run the world.
The movie goes on with Bruce "Jim Carrey" filling
in every fraction of a second with his engaging
presence and amazing energy and the wilde contortions
in his face.
Bruce Nolan (Jim Carrey) starts off in excitement
by trying his powers on a fire hydrant, blowing it
away just by pointing at it.

This scene is particularly intense because of the background song played. I've Got The Power (1).
He goes on to incite the wind to blow the dress from a girl walking by. Then he starts to recall the miracles and tries some divine stunt
similar to the parting of the Red Sea (to facilitate the exodus of the jews from their oppressors in the biblical story) but in a wierd setting. A bowl of tomato soup!
Bruce goes on to waste his God-given powers in petty things like enlarging his girl-friend's boops or pulling the moon closer for a more romantic time with her. Until he gets to realizes the immensity of handling such things like the millions of prayers!
Sitting to his computer to 'download' prayers to answer them, he gets overwhelmed by their size and panickes into selecting 'Yes To All' resulting in an outrageous collective lotto win for every one who played that night! But his abuse of authority gets disasterous when he hits part of the city by a meteor. His idea was to get back his lost job at the TV channel by 'creating' news for which he is the exclusive reporter.
Then riots break in the city on the spread of rumors of the nearing apocalypse and God reappears to ask Bruce what he did to people. Bruce realizes that God wants people to stop looking up to him for help and start helping themselves! Then things start to unfold.
The film is fun to watch and is blessed by a graceous performance from Jennifer Aniston
although she does not get a lot of screen time. The strikingly easy and casual rendering of his part by 'Morgan Freeman'  invites some wilde idea 
Carrey with director Shadyac
that he must have spent time in some "Place of Gods" to acquire some God habits.
The movie is rated at 6.6 out of 10 by most
critics and reviewers but is not for under 13
year olds.

Bruce Almighty (2003, 101 min)
Genre: Comedy, color.
Cast: Jim Carrey (Bruce Nolan)
         Morgan Freeman (God)
       Jennifer Aniston (Grace)
Written By: Steve Coren, Mark O'keefe and 3 others.
Director: Tom Shadyac (Also made some other Jim Carrey movies: Ace
Ventura, Pet Detective, Liar Liar. As well as Eddie Murphy's Nutty Professor
Earnings: $484,572,835 (Worldwide)

Now To The Extras:

(1) Note on "I've Got The Power" (from Wikipedia): Actually the song's name is
"The Power". A 1990 single electronic pop hit by the German music group 'Snap'
 that was released, remixed, covered and transformed ever since in various countries
 and was used in more than 15 movies and many TV shows. See first clip below.

(2) Tom Shadyac world-renowned filmmaker on
his transforming accident and his documentary "I Am".
See second video clip below.

*Click Here To Read About"The Shack"
Click To Buy "The Shack"


Bruce Almighty (I've Got The Power)


Tom Shadyac talking to Russia Today's Thom Hartmann
in "Conversations With Great Minds"

Buy Movie From Amazon:

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

سؤال الضهبان

MovieGlobe: Japan's Version of Romeo and Juliet

الواقعية المفرطة Hyperreality